"It's constant action. You run around and shoot people. What's more fun than that?"
This week's episode introduces us to the "San Diego Surfer" Ryan Greenspan. After waxing eloquent on the joys of San Diego, Ryan explained his introduction to paintball. One year he and some friends all got paintball guns and spent the next few years playing by themselves. Since, in Ryan's own words, none of the players were good at any other sports, they kept playing paintball. They made friends with the local field owner and everything "snowballed into a pretty big thing." He now considers himself one of the very fortunate people who can live as a professional paintball player.
The first match this week pitted the Montreal Image and the San Diego Dynasty. Dynasty lost one player of the break and one more fell while Travis LaSoya slowly worked up the snake. After a few intense exchanges it's 5-2 for Image. Dynasty ends the game with a couple of desperation runs and managed to bunker LaSoya before losing 4-0.
The next match featured the Jacksonville Raiders and the Los Angeles Ironmen lead by Ollie Lang. While no players were eliminated on the break, each team lost a player on secondary moves up the field. Jacksonville lost a second player from long range. Down one, a Raider run took out one of the Ironmen before falling. Over the next few minutes the Raiders put on a clinic on snapshooting as they completely decimated the Ironmen, ending up 4-0 winners.
The final game of the day pitted California rivals Los Angeles Infamous and the San Diego Dynasty. Infamous made an aggressive break but quickly lost two players. Over the next few seconds three more Infamous players fall as do three from Dynasty - less than a minute into the match and it's already 4-2 for Dynasty. After the initial burst of action, Dynasty focused on swarming the remaining Infamous and won 4-0.
As a somewhat amusing side story, Ryan also invited the cameras along as he and his buddies turned clubbing into a nine hole golf game with specific rules about what drinks accounted for what scores. While we never did get the specifics on the rules, it was unique to see a group of paintballers clad in polo shirts and plaid golfers pants.
Next week will feature Rich Telford from the Sacramento Excessive.
